


Enlighten

by bandaran



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feels, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Nemeton, POV Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:58:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6391183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandaran/pseuds/bandaran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nemeton holds him when he cries. It folds around him; just them braiding together. </p><p>My Spark, it whispers, my bright Spark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the companion fic to [Endarken](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6304291/chapters/14446738), that being said, it'll read smoother if Endarken is read first. Or don't. Do what feels right my guy. 
> 
> Writing Stiles is incredibly cathartic... and sweary. 
> 
> This is completed fic. Finally.
> 
> You can find fanart/garbage on ye olde tumblr [here](http://bandaran.tumblr.com/)

One.

 

His room is in shambles. Rent apart because he couldn’t stand the stillness anymore. It’s always so quiet now. All the sounds he knows, the little vibrations he had become so accustom are gone before he even had a chance to know they were there. His dad clanging around in the kitchen and swearing at all the bullshit rabbit food in the cabinets. ESPN blaring in the living room. Creaking hardwood in the halls so late into the night it was closer to sun up than sun set.

Now it’s just him and the silence. Silence can be deafening, but this isn’t even that, this is… this is – he screams. He screams just so that he feel some kind of sensation, something other than the absolute fucking _nothing_.

Fleetingly he tries to quiet himself, not wanting to wake his father in the next room. The impulse is so ragged; an automatic response ingrained after years of getting too excited about something or too upset and causing a small uproar that always ended with John Stilinski looking tried and disappointed in the doorway.

He can scream as loud as he wants now.

He does.

 

He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. Hollow eyes stare back. He doesn’t look like anyone. He looks like nothing.

 

A knock falls on the door. He’s sitting in the living room eating cereal, cartoons mindlessly droning on the television. The rapping is constant. When he notices it, and he realizes it’s been happening longer than he has been listening, he tries to ignore it. The persistence shakes off the remainder of his stupor and he gets to his feet.

The sunlight burns in his eyes when he cracks open the door.

“Dude, where’ve…,” Scott looks him up and down. Worry stitches his face. “Mom, uh, wants you to come over for dinner.”

Stiles’ eyes fall on the piece of paper taped to the door, the one Scott is pointedly not looking at.

Foreclosure, it says in blunt typeface. The static crackles in his mind, whirring into thought rather than emptiness. He blinks at the notice. Scott is talking, but he can’t hear. All he can understand is that fucking word. It’s all there is, a massive black scar on his father’s front door.

Stiles turns and pitches his bowl as hard as he can at the wall behind him. It shatters, milk and Froot Loops painting the carpet. He tries to get his hands on something else to destroy, but Scott is over the threshold. He’s pinned down to Scott’s chest, immoveable wolf strength holding him still.

“Dude, calm down! It’s ok!”

Stiles thrashes, unintelligible sounds ripping from his throat. He’s not crying. He doesn’t cry anymore. Now there is only the fury and it roars in his bones.

Scott reduces him to his belly, practically laying on top of him to subdue him.

“STILES! IT’S OK!”

“LET GO!” Stiles shrieks. He had almost forgotten what his voice sounds like.

 

Melissa gives him a sedative. She tucks him in to bed and stays until he is asleep. When he wakes up she is gone, but her mark is on his room. She’s cleaned up the bits of what he’s broken, done his laundry, changed light bulbs.

He follows the smell of cooking down stairs. She smiles at him from the stove when he reaches the bottom step.

“Hungry?” she asks. Her voice isn’t fake cheerful. She’s not talking to him like a child. Melissa would know how to talk to someone like him. She’s seen enough grievous families at the hospital. Maybe she can’t help slipping in the strong, maternal tone. He doesn’t know if he likes it. It doesn't matter.

He nods and stands at the counter opposite her. Melissa fills up a plate of pasta casserole. It’s the same thing she always made when he slept over at her house if she didn’t just order pizza or Chinese.

“Wanna sit, honey?” she asks, nodding to the table. He knows it’s there. He feels it in the corner, coated in dust, papers and old dishes still in place from the last time his father ate dinner there.

Stiles stays where he is.

He’s not hungry. He knows he should be. He’s had nothing but cereal, whiskey and Adderall for days. The taste of her casserole is a memory. Something he remembers wolfing down while trying to keep his shit together one handedly working an Xbox controller. He knows how it should taste. But it could be ash in his mouth for all he knows.

“I think you should come stay with me and Scott for a while,” Melissa says, spearing noodles as she talks.

“Where’s Scott?” Stiles asks. He can’t eat this. His stomach isn’t upset, he just can’t stand it. Can stand sustaining himself for no fucking reason.

“He had to go to work.”

She doesn’t miss a beat, but he’s not stupid enough to believe her. He understands why she would lie, how she’s only trying to protect the both of them. Seriously, as if Scott not being here is enough to do anymore damage.

“Thanks,” Stiles says, setting his plate on the counter. He wanders back upstairs.

He crawls into bed and stays there. When he wakes up, the house is empty, all the lights snuffed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two.**

 

He’s covered in sweat, his sheets drenched through when he bolts upright in bed. The three-fold spiral is burned into the backs of his eye lids. He’s trembling violently, can’t breathe, his mouth burning and dry. Stiles stumbles to the bathroom. He swallows down his medicine and steadies himself on the sink.

What the ever-loving fuck?

He glares at himself in the mirror. Now? Now is when his brain decides it needs to see _that_? His heart still hammers in his chest and all he can think is that if he thinks it’s loud, it must have been deafening to a wolf. Not _a_ wolf. Yes. _A_ wolf. _Any_ wolf. _Any fucking animal_.

 

The dreams get worse, because of course they do. He stops sleeping. It’s the only thing he can think of to stave them off. Which is stupid. It means he has to be awake, hours alone ignoring text messages and knocks on the door. He fucks around on the internet and watches television. He paces around the house. He cleans until his fingers are swollen.

                                                                                                

Melissa thinks he did it on purpose. Maybe it doesn’t even matter whether he did or not. The whole goddamn town thinks he’s hopped the fuck-nut bus to Crazytown. The truth is that he hydroplaned because his tires are about as bald as a James Carville. He’s not really hurt. He hadn’t been going that fast and yet he managed to wrap his Jeep around a lamp post anyway. The hospital keeps him for forty eight hours. They tell him it’s to watch for head trauma.

Except, again, he’s not a fucking idiot.

Twenty four hours is watch time for concussion. Forty eight is for suicide attempts.

It’s Melissa’s doing. They sedate him for most of it. The drugs lock him in an iron maiden. He’s trapped with the night terrors, with the tempest. The fucking triskele. It’s everywhere, branded on his bones, staining his blood. He tries to scream.

No one hears him.

 

He barely notices Scott’s absence. No more knocking. No more alerts on his phone.

 

He _knows_ what the triskele is. There’s nothing to learn. Nothing the internet or library can tell him that he hasn’t already gleaned from running with wolves most of his adult life. He doesn’t even care what it means, he just wants it to stop.

He starts looking into dream-makers. Because these aren’t his dreams. He’s sure. These dreams are coming from somewhere else and he knows that sounds paranoid as shit, but he’s seen some absolute, supernatural _bullcrap_ in his short time on this earth. This isn’t his brain doing this. It’s not stress or depression or what the hell ever he knows Melissa and Deaton will try to pin it on.

There are lots of dream creatures in the Bestiary; things that make dreams, things that appear in dreams, things that feed on dreams. But this is so specific. As he painfully works to translate pages at the library it becomes clear that the ties he is looking for just aren’t there. Nothing links the onslaught of nightmares to the triskele.

What he does find isn’t exactly what he was looking for. He runs across it in a tome of Celtic symbology. Not the triskele, but a special sort of Celtic knot. Interlocking branches and roots tangled around a trunk.

The tree of life.

Cyclical, never ending.

He runs his fingers over it.

 

This is the last place he wants to be. Every step he takes closer to the Nemeton’s stump is like turpentine wiping away old paint in his head. Of course the dreams came from here. Where else could they have? It reaches for him, the air heated and waxy as its influence stretches. It eases his trepidation, wraps him in its warmth.

It’s weak. He can feel the shudder of its consciousness, small and fragile, trapped in the wood. Stiles kneels at the roots. Hot summer wind rolls through grove, tossing his hair and leaves at his feet. He knows he should go, leave this thing to itself, but he's long since abandoned the instinct for self-preservation. When he touches the age rings his vision, his thoughts, his muscles surge with searing white light.

The places inside of him, the nothing, fill in with the Nemeton’s pale fire. It thrums through him, radiating at every edge of his being like he’s swallowed a burning star.

He give in to it, and it holds him, kneads him until he’s pliant against it. It’s all there is. All he needs.

 

Chris Argent is dead at his feet. He knows he did this, but he can’t remember doing it. He’s soaked to the bone. Lightening splits the clouds, a flashbulb that illuminates the grove horrifically. He hears Lydia screaming, he knows Scott is talking, saying his name. How did he get here? What did he do?

His hands are blue and numb with cold. He… he killed….

He can’t breathe. What happened? What’s happening? What should he…? Dad?

He backs up, stumbles over himself, falls into the mud. He forces himself up, away. Just get away. Run.

 

The Nemeton comes for him. It makes him sleep. He stops to catch his breath and then he’s collapsed, unconscious. It doesn’t use words. It taps places in his mind to help him understand. It felt his suffering. That suffering was not so different from its own. It tried to fill in his blank spots, the places in him corroded with loss. It had forced the grief, the anger to the outside. It hadn’t known others would come here, that he would be a danger to them.

The Nemeton holds him when he cries. It folds around him; just them braiding together.

 _My Spark,_ it whispers, _my bright Spark._


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**.

 

The Nemeton shows him streams safe to drink from and which plants to eat. It becomes a constant gentle hand guiding him one way or another, always watching from the back of his mind. He feels calmer with its presence. It dotes on him from time to time. He hears it in the sighing wind, soft mothering sounds.

It teaches him to call flowers out of their seed tufts, to pull from the energy in the ground. It pulls out his Spark, makes it bigger, easier to wield. He digs his fingers into the soil. The life is there, beating in a gentle rhythm, the tiny heart of each seed. The Spark is drawn to it. It threads into the potential energy, twines, curling, rustling, and he tugs. Twisting little vines break through the earth. They thicken and bloom.

Days of work, of single focus like he’s never had, brings about a small garden of green fronds and flowers springing up around the Nemeton’s roots. It is pleased with his gift. The little lives sheltering around it seem to make it healthier as if the stump has taken in breath. He feels it strengthen.

The more he reaches into the ether, the more tiny vestiges he retrieves, the more the Nemeton thrives.

 

He catches a glimpse of himself in the creek. He doesn’t recognize himself. His body looks withered. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here.

His hands have a tremor coursing through them.

 

The Nemeton wakes him. It’s still night. He splays his palm flat across the cut trunk. Fear shoots through his fingers, stiffening his joints. He hinges upright. Thoughts of panic strap him in on himself. He can’t shut them out. He’s on his feet, heeding the Nemeton’s pleas.

He scours the forest for what it asks.

 

Being in this house reminds him of who he was; who he might still be, if he chooses. The Nemeton’s trance ebbs. He is aware of the power behind its influence, that it could tell him he is actually a platypus and he wouldn’t argue.  It would have bothered him five years ago, being so easily manipulated by a greater force, but he’s tired of fighting. Most of all he’s tired of thinking. Letting the Nemeton mold him, put him to better use than he’d ever striven for himself, seems like enough.

The house isn’t quite empty, but neither is he anymore. He’s a shadow, moving among them, pressed to walls, padding silently behind them. The Spark blankets him; makes him ethereal.

Melissa looks out from the dining table, no longer entrenched in a conversation with someone Stiles doesn’t know. She’s felt something, maybe. She’s not his mother, but she is as dear to him and he to her as if she were. Can she feel him slipping among them?

He won’t spare her what’s to come. She’s opened her home to wolves; foreign scents crisscross the house, strong enough and heady even to Stiles’ nose. He wonders why. He can’t help but prod at the strangeness of it. He used to know everything that went on in this house, this was his home. Now there are outsiders in the kitchen and unfamiliar shoes piled by the door.

He leaves her; leaves her spun, dark curls and spicy perfume. He tucks the hex he’s made away further in the house where it won’t be disturbed. The Nemeton deals in dreams and hallucinations. The nightmares soon to roam this house won’t be forgiving.

Whatever is causing the wolves to amass here, whatever their intentions, it won’t matter. They won’t threaten the Nemeton after this, they won’t even scent the Preserve’s air. This will be their only warning to stay away.

 

He sits cross-legged in the woods beyond Scott’s house. Even at such a distance, the Nemeton curls around him, holding him in loving tendrils, anchoring him. It guides him from his body. His spirit steps free of its flesh.

 

Scott is passed out on the floor surrounded by wolves.

The Nemeton has already been here.

For now, they are all sleeping soundly, breathing steady, nuzzling and humming into the carpet. They don’t look like they’ve fallen, simply become saturated by exhaustion, heads and eye lids drooping until all succumbed to the influence. It has been a long, long time since the Nemeton’s dominion spread this far. They are in its territory now.

He sees Kira on the couch and can’t help but frown. Kira?

Her head is resting in her hand against the couch’s arm. Stiles blinks. It’s been years since he’s seen her last. Instagram doesn’t do her justice. She’s always been beautiful, but she’s also done what most do after leaving home. She’s become more herself, grown into her confidence; it’s obvious even while she sleeps. It makes him ache to see her at all. Why did she come back and why to a den of omegas? Even it is Scott’s house, these wolves are….

He…. He knows some of these wolves… Ethan and… Cora Hale? He isn’t really in the house so he can’t turn them over to be completely sure. He’s only projected his consciousness here to be certain none of them, specifically the True Alpha, can break the hex before the Nemeton is ready to release them. 

Are they here for him? Because he’s lost?

To them, he is, he supposes. But this is extreme. They’re all here, there’s even a douchy scarf hanging off the banister and it’s _summer_. Three guesses which asshole that belongs to.

Blood runs cold in his veins.

Stiles stares at Scott, cemented in place. Ethan and Cora wouldn’t bother coming back here for Stiles; for Scott, if he sounded desperate enough, maybe. How did Scott even get in touch with Cora? Last they heard she was in Brazil and she didn’t exactly make strides to keep in touch.

Somehow Scott had gotten all of them here.  

Air prattles out of him. He examines the dozing bodies in the living room. He knows what he’s looking for, but he won’t think it, won’t consider it until he sees it.

Dr. Deaton’s car is outside, but he’s not in this room and there’s no sign of Isaac other than the fucking scarf. One of the wolves, hard to know which when they’re all piled together, yips, fingers and feet twitching. The nightmare is seeping in. It’ll start soon.

Stiles pads down the hall.

There’s a hand laid out in the next arch way. Isaac. He’s on his side, half in and half out of the kitchen. Deaton’s there too, slumped against the dishwasher.

He steps in, phasing through most of Isaac’s upper half. There’s a third person in here. Long legs in slim gray jeans stretch out around the corner.  He stops moving. He breathes.

Stiles stares at him, blank. He’s propped half up on the refrigerator. 

Well fuck.

Isaac whines. Nightmares run rampant through the house. Little shrieks of terror kick up from the living room.

Stiles crouches by Derek fucking Hale’s prone body.

He resists the urge to do – he doesn’t know what. Yell? Hit something? It wouldn’t do anything if he did. He would pass right through anything he tried to strike. For a while he just stares. What the hell else is he supposed to do? It took years to get over that kind of rejection. Because it wasn’t even rejection. Derek had just walked away. Not a word.

Real rejection was being told no, maybe being told why if you were lucky. There wasn’t a word for looking at someone, smiling and just fucking off.

It was so much worse.

He had agonized over it for longer than he liked to admit. He had looked _everywhere_. _Every-goddman-where_. Because fuck Derek if he didn’t want anyone to find him. This wasn’t about him. Looking is what family does when someone goes missing.

Scott gave up after a few months with no word. But Scott wasn’t balls deep _in love_ with Derek Hale. It was high school. He was mostly hormones at the time. It wasn’t love, not really, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t _something_. That it couldn’t have been something once he figured his shit out, grew up a little. Not that pale, skinny and hyperactive were exactly the most attractive traits ever, but fuck it that wasn’t the point.

He had moved passed this, passed Derek. Seeing him here now, it’s peeling the scab off a wound he thought was closed. He needs to break something. Now.

The Nemeton stirs in his mind. It sets his hands on pins and needles. Stiles rolls his eyes, wanting to ignore the request, but knowing that resisting it is useless. He brings his palm to hover over Derek’s forehead and the Nemeton pulls him in to the dream.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four.**

The dream billows around him. It hatches into something more substantial and Stiles tries not to think about it. Now that he has a little clarity, now that it’s not just him and the tree, he’s more cognizant of how this whole deal is a little fucked. A little.

Stiles stands in the Nemeton’s grove as it spreads around him, arms crossed petulantly. There isn’t a fucking thing he wants to see here. Far be it for him to give into the impulse to creep on Derek’s subconscious. As if he still gives a crap. As if he’s still pining like this is some terrible CW drama.

A wisp of smoke appears atop the Nemeton. It undulates, solidifying, becomes humanoid. It’s him. Stiles cocks an eyebrow.

 _Well shit on this_.

The Nemeton draws on a person’s mind, on their own feelings and imaginings to create these dreamscapes. Half of this dream is the tree, half of it is Derek. The version of Stiles that comes into focus looks like a deranged Peter Pan, wild and… honestly, a little sexy, in a dangerous, dirty hermit sort of way.

Jesus.

Derek stumbles into the clearing, claws out, spooked. Stiles huffs a breath, watching as the Nemeton wishes him to.

“He-eya Derek,” says Other Stiles.

Derek turns, calm, but wary. He looks just as constipated as always. It becomes clear that he doesn’t know Stiles is there, or that the real Stiles is there, rather. In any other context this would feel wrong. But this is the context in which Derek disappeared without an explanation and never bothered to so much as send a text that he was ok, or God forbid, that he was sorry. So fuck his privacy.

“We didn’t come to hurt you,” he says stiffly. Isn’t _that_ just par for the course? Not even in his damn dreams can he be anything other than taciturn.

“Where ya been, big guy?” asks Other Stiles.

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah, kinda,” Stiles mutters.

Other Stiles muses, “Suppose it doesn’t, Sourwolf. You wanna know where I’ve been?”

Stiles’ focus snaps to his double, to the Nemeton. It tells Derek about looking for him. About fixating on the last words Derek ever said to him. About the others leaving. About Dad. About his botched suicide, if it could even be called that.

The Jeep had been an accident.

What the Nemeton so casually drops into conversation wasn’t a conscious decision, just an impulse. Something he woke up from covered in his own vomit and sobbing. Not because he had failed, but because his dad would have been so fucking disappointed in him.

He grinds his teeth.

The Nemeton has an edge in its voice that Stiles doesn’t; a streak of something cold and gnarled. It makes a dig at Derek’s family and Stiles takes an involuntary step forward. Even hating Derek as much as he does, there are lines even he won’t cross. Bringing the Hales’ tragic fucking death into anything is so far over his moral line he can’t even see it.

Their mention contorts Derek’s face. But Derek is a shut-down person. He’s not loud, he doesn’t yell, not at things like this. A muscle in his cheek flexes and his heavy brow hardens. He might as well be sobbing. Stiles should be reveling in the hurt written all over him, but he just can’t bring himself to be that vindictive.

When the Nemeton ends its rant, Derek swallows and forces out, “Stiles, I’m-,”

“Sorry?” scoffs the other Stiles, “You were _it_ for me. And all you’ve got is ‘I’m sorry’? Wanna take another swing at it, _omega_?”

Something sour roils in Stiles’ gut. Just because the Nemeton has access to his memories and feelings, doesn’t mean he wants them shared. Certainly not with Derek.

“The parking lot at the school,” he stammers, actually _stammers_ , he’s never heard Derek speak with anything but intense, irritating confidence, “and I couldn’t think – of – of what the kanima was. That look you gave me. That’s why I left, Stiles. I was a posturing asshole, trying replace my dead fucking family with teenagers and even through the invincible feeling of being an alpha, the look on your face, you a sixteen year old kid, that look _wrecked_ me. I knew what was going to happen when I fucked everything up. Just like I always do. I should have left that night. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave you. And when I did, I shouldn’t have. I fucked everything up anyway without there even being anything.

“And I don’t care if you never speak to me again for what I did. I hope you don’t, because a lifetime of trying to make it up to you wouldn’t be enough. But I will be god _fucking_ damned if I let THAT THING HAVE YOU!”

A few things: he has never heard Derek swear before and it’s jarring. There have been plenty of times when he looked like he wanted to, but despite all of his short comings, he is weirdly well mannered about language. Physically lashing out irrationally? Not as much.

Second, he looks even more terrifying than usual when he talks about feelings.

Third. Stiles doesn’t have a third. His thoughts are still rebooting. When he comes back online he’s shaking with anger.

Fuck Derek Hale.

Really? He disappears for five years and all of a sudden it’s Stiles’ fault he left in the first place? So they eye fucked a few times. Stiles was convinced it was one sided; again, he was in _high school_ and a total fucking _mess_. They had barely ever touched and Derek was suddenly so tortured over a _look_? As if Stiles is in control of his motor functions hundred percent of the time on a good day.

He blows air from his nose.

He wants to pretend he doesn’t get it. It’s easier to hold on to his initial reaction of outrage. Anger isn’t complicated and the last thing he has the energy for is empathy.

Everyone that Derek gives himself to leaves him. One way or another, they’ve hurt him and left him. It doesn’t make him leaving ok, doesn’t change the fact that he could have said something. Stiles doesn’t care how difficult it would have been for him, doesn’t care that Derek’s basically an emotional invalid.

Know what else was really fucking difficult? Being abandoned without warning; mourning someone that isn’t really dead, but chose to stay away; someone strong and steady and constant and then waking up one morning and realizing they are gone for good.

Other Stiles grins, “Cheese and crackers, Hale. Just a big, sad puppy after all. You think I give a shit now? You’re a fucking bad joke. You’re nothing to anyone anymore.”

The Nemeton certainly didn’t mince words. It went straight for the jugular. To be fair, this was the first time Stiles has ever heard it speak and most of what it is saying is what Derek subconsciously expects to hear. Emotional masochism.

A dark shadow goes over Derek’s face. A glare that could strip varnish peeks out from under his brow. “How do you know if you’re in a dream?” he growls.

Stiles is taken aback for a moment. He knows he’s dreaming? He remembers counting his fingers when he’s not sure?

“I don’t know, Derek, how do you know if you’re in a dream?”

“What are you doing to him?” Derek demands. Something about werewolves that are born makes even their human half look predatory. Cora and Peter have the look too. Sharp features and teeth. Derek doesn’t need to go animal to be scary.

“Nothing worse than you’ve done.”

“You made him kill Chris; he’s not a killer.”

It was an accident. They didn’t know.

“I can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to, at least a little.”

A whole Stiles, balanced by anger and happiness, would never have hurt Argent. But Stiles tipped toward rage and not even aware of the split? It wasn’t…. It wasn’t his fault. It was an _accident_.

“Our pack is big enough to protect you. You don’t have to do this. Tell me what you want.”

The Other Stiles begins to morph, arms spindling into branches, skin cracking, he is becoming the Nemeton, “What would a tree want with a fox and wolf? What would a Nemeton want with such lost souls?”


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles is released from the dream. He doesn’t know what to feel. He had turned feeling off. It was just easier that way.

The nightmares have gone on longer than they should. The Nemeton is satisfied with what it has seen in their minds. They won’t come looking for him now, not if the cries in the next room are any indicator.

Stiles falls back into his own body.

 

When he reenters the house in a solid form, the wolves are writhing, trying to fight it. Stiles steps over them, avoiding slashing claws and kicking feet. He retrieves the hex from where he stowed it in the linen closet down the hall.

As he makes his way out, his path is blocked.

Derek’s somehow fended off the nightmare, if only for a few seconds. He is passed out on his back in the corridor, sounds in his throat like a terrified dog.

Stiles is stock still. He watches Derek flinch in his sleep at some unseen monster.

Maybe it isn’t a monster.

The Nemeton had brought up his family before. Panic is a thunderclap down Stiles’ back. He’s muddled by Derek’s presence, hates the shit out of him, but forcing him to dream about his burning family? No, no that’s so far from wrong. Even if it’s something else, he won’t chance something so gruesome.

He sprints the steps separating them and dives to his knees at Derek’s side. Jesus how many times does he have to endure something like this? He was supposed to be done with this sort of black dread; done with seeing Derek unconscious, riddled with pain.

“Derek,” he says gripping the wolf’s shirt front with both hands. God, he’s heavy. Stiles’ had forgotten just how much ropes of muscle weigh. Derek barely moves when he tries to jostle him awake.

He looks pale. Sweat bubbles up in beads on his forehead.

God, this is too much, too surreal.  

Derek’s quaking under him, murmuring like he’s trying to cry out. How did he used to do this? Stiles wheels back and smacks Derek as hard as he can. “DEREK WAKE UP!” he shouts.

Quick, labored breath drags down his throat, his eyes flutter. Shit. Stiles can’t be here. Derek’s ok, he’s awake. Stiles presses the hex into his hand and stands. Part of him wants to wait, just long enough to see him open his eyes, but he can’t risk it. Derek’s too fast, too strong; he outran a cop car on foot for christsake. If he sees Stiles here he’ll never make it back to the grove.

Shaking his head to clear it, Stiles backs up and then he’s running out into the street, cutting across backyards. He doesn’t stop until he’s well into the Preserve and gasping for air.

 

His hands are still trembling and he’s starving when he falls back against the Nemeton. It senses his fatigue, his distress. It fills him with Spark and the aftershocks of too much adrenaline bleed away. He can’t think. The fragments of clarity he does get are rimmed with the knowledge that his body is starting to shut down from the withdrawal.

He’s been taking Adderall from fifteen years, every morning and afternoon without fail; more if it’s a bad day, if he just can’t meld cohesive thoughts together. That’s not the kind of addiction a person just walks away from. The Spark burns off some of the effects. He should be in a much worse state. Shit, he can’t even remember the last time he took it, but he can still focus.

The Nemeton is keeping him sharp enough to function, but there doesn’t seem to be much it can do for him physically. The shakes are god awful.

He leans back into the bark, arms wrapped around himself, eyes closed. He counts. Kids in elementary used to give him so much shit counting, for needing to sit down and just count and breathe. But fuck them. Counting breath is calming as all hell. It doesn’t dissipate the tremors, but it does give him something else to fixate on.

The Nemeton hums quietly around him. It holds back any stray thoughts that might distract him. It feels so good, like his dad rubbing his back until he falls asleep.

Hands reach for him, the Nemeton’s hands. It tugs gently on his consciousness. He recedes into himself, follows it to whatever it wants to go.

 

It shows him the animal clinic; the waiting metal basin being filled with ice. He relives the sensation of being plunged under. Of breathing in shards of ice and of being so cold he stops registering everything around him.

It shows him Derek’s sneakers by the door, his socks rolled neatly into the soles.

He grimaces.

When he turns he sees the Door. It’s not impressive or towering. It’s just a door. Gritting his teeth, he goes to it. Fingers wrap the knob and his steps through.

 

Maybe he’s an emotional masochist too. Maybe he’s just being a guilt tripping dick. Maybe he’s spiraling because he can’t tell up from down anymore. As the restaurant takes shape around him, summoning details buried deep in his memory, he pours over the idea that there is no right and wrong. No point. Because people like Claudia and John Stilinski just die for no reason and people like Derek Hale run because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to do.

There’s no karmic balance. No real consequences to anything. Bullshit happens and will always happen. There’s no lesson to be learned. No overarching moral.

Stiles dresses in a version of himself that’s more palatable. He knows how he looks, which is to say, he’s not exactly the most attractive person ever when he’s healthy, but now he’s pretty sure he looks like he’s been on a month long bender in a crack house. The memory of himself five years ago fills in his limbs, the plains of his face, the shadows under his ribs.

He sits in the booth nearest to him, his favorite booth by the kitchen. He showed Scott how to turn a straw wrapper into an inch worm here when they were twelve.

His fingers drum the table top while he waits.

 

A new presence touches this reality. He hears water cascading to the floor, shivering, sharp breath, clipped by low body temperature. Dripping fills the space. Sopping bare feet smack the linoleum. The front doors rattle under stress.

Stiles rolls his eyes. He allows himself to be seen and only seen. He’s not going to play any wolfy you-can’t-lie-to-me-I-smell-and-hear-everything-you’re-thinking-bullshit games right now. That shit got old years ago. No. This is going to be on his terms.

This one time, he gets to control the situation.

“You just got here,” he sighs. He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be indulging in this crap. He knows those eyes are on him, those eyes he just cannot bring himself to look into. His hands card through his hair. “You gonna sit?” he adds out of annoyance.

The booth creaks as a body falls into it. Cold is clouding off of him like he just stepped out of a freezer, which, he sort of did. Stiles picks at his fingers, something he hasn’t let himself do in years. It used to get bad. He used to worry the skin until it bled and made ugly, warped scabs across his fingertips. Dad had made him wear Band-Aids on all his fingers every day in middle school until the compulsion broke. That was also around the time his discovered that masturbation was a much more effective stress reliever.

“How’d you know it wasn’t me?” Stiles asks in leu of having no other topics of conversation for a conversation he doesn’t want to have.

A pause. He can practically hear the gears tumbling. “You aren’t cruel. Not even when you’re mad.”

Stiles makes the mistake of looking up, of meeting Derek’s eyes. God, they’re not even a color that should exist. He’d forgotten just how clear they are, how they manage to be blue and green and hazel all at once. Derek’s soaked. Black hair in a twist, skin so pale from the cold he’s a light shade of blue, his mouth purple and stern.

His shirt is also practically see through. Great. That’s fucking great. Because Stiles isn’t confused enough about what he should be feeling. Being this furious and sporting half a hard-on is definitely a new one. Why can’t Derek just be fucking normal looking? Stiles likes normal; he’s plain, he gets plain. Derek is just… fuck him. Seriously.

Also he deserves to be objectified, because he’s an asshole and, again, fuck him. Stiles is going to run with whatever shitty thoughts come to him. He refuses to feel bad about cutting Derek Hale up like he’s a piece of meat. He gives no fucks. Maybe back in high school he’d have strained to be respectful, at least, try to treat Derek like a person, try to know him, but that shit went out the window after La Iglesia.

Derek just looks so goddamn tragic. Like a movie villain that is revealed to just be a mistreated, tortured soul. He’s Loki. A _little_ bit Loki.

“How do you know it’s me now?” Stiles asks, regaining himself.

“I don’t.”

“Why’d you follow me here?”

“To find out why you did that to us.” Stiles doesn’t care how pretty his eyes are. It’s that bland expression that snaps him out of his fascination. An expression like nothing’s happened, like he just saw Stiles last week.

“You deserved it,” Stiles says. He’s partly glad the Nemeton was able to put a little fear in him, even if he didn’t quite agree with the method. Derek Hale could use a little fear.

“I did. They didn’t.” Stiles can only agree, but Derek has clearly missed the object of his previous statement. _You_ deserved it. The others were different. The best offense is a good defense or whatever else they say in sports flicks.

“The Nemeton doesn’t want them interfering. You can’t tell me they weren’t going to. It just wanted to scare them off.”

Derek’s eyes become hooded and low. His thinking face. Does he know the effect that has on people? Stiles feels the anticipation even though he doesn’t want to.

“Why Mazza’s?”

It’s not quite what he meant to ask. Derek isn’t good at talking. Talking to him is like talking to someone on the other side of a wall; only half of what they say actually comes through clearly.

He wants to dance around? Try small talk for the first time in his monosyllabic life? Fine. Stiles leans his chin into his arm and says, “I had this fantasy of you asking me on a horribly, epically awkward date here.” No point in hiding his teenage crush now and he can see how his answer plays out in Derek’s features. It stings him, at least a little.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. An apology is really the last thing Stiles expects. Derek doesn’t apologize. Certainly not to Stiles. Not ever.

“I believe you,” pours out of him and it’s true. He doesn’t know why Derek’s back now after all this time, but despite the rest, he did come back. It’s not enough to ever consider forgiving him, but it’s not nothing. Coming back to Beacon Hills took balls. Stiles wasn’t the only person that grew to hate Derek in his absence.

“I should have,” Derek says, looking back up, brow knitted. Stiles lost track of the conversation for a moment. He frowns in response. “Asked you on an awkward date.”

Right. Because apparently big-scary-wolf had some feels he’d been grappling with.

“I was seventeen,” Stiles says with measure. Is Derek missing the point? He’s not mad because he didn’t get asked to the fucking prom. He knows now that obviously he was too young. Derek was already in his twenties, Stiles’ dad was the sheriff, _OBVIOUSLY_ it was not the right time.

Derek’s face pinkens; the flush reaches the tops of his ears. The contrast of someone so big and surly blushing brings Stiles’ temper back down to a simmer, because he’s not made of stone. Even he grudgingly gets that this is some cute shit.

“You aren’t now,” he says and Stiles blinks. That sounded suspiciously like being hit on. His stomach tickles. He wills the sensation down.

“I kind of hate you right now, bad-timing-wolf.”

“Did you hear what I said to the Nemeton?” Derek asks.

“Yeah.”

“It was all true.”

Stiles falls into the booth’s backing. His knee starts bouncing. Even beyond the Door his anxiety seems to catch up to him.

“You know I’m choosing to be with the Nemeton, right? I _want_ to help it.”

“Why?”

“It needs me,” he says automatically, he sees that the question remains in Derek’s eyes and elaborates, “Even back in high school, you guys never really needed me. Dad did. And I liked being counted on. I liked picking up his prescriptions, making dinner. You know? Like, _mattering_. I don’t care how that sounds. It’s hard to give many fucks at this point.” He won’t say more than that, because he and the Nemeton aren’t the ones on fucking trial.

Derek looks him dead in the eye, pegs his damn soul and says, “I need you.”

A chuckle snorts out of Stiles in response. Since fucking when? Derek doesn’t _need_ people. Derek tolerates people. This isn’t need, this is him wanting someone to forgive him, someone to empathize.

“Want and need are not the same thing, big guy,” Stiles tells him plainly.

“That’s why I didn’t say want. Thank you for the grammar lesson.”

There’s the infamous Hale back sass; Derek reverts to what Stiles remembers and he prefers it that way. Drenched, sad puppy Derek is all wrong. Pissed off snarky-wolf reads better in the set of his frame and face.

“The old standby. Dick classic,” Stiles says, pleased.

“Charm seems pointless.”

He fights the urge to laugh. He’s seen Derek’s version of charm. It skirts a little too close to homicide.

“With that hairline, it is a little redundant.” Not made of stone. Will occasionally flirt when flirted with. Even now, apparently. It’s too easy to fall into this, whatever it is. He forgets for a moment that this isn’t real. That he’s not actually at Mazza’s; that he’s curled up in the grove, meditative on the Nemeton’s stump. He adds, “I won’t apologize for the ice bath, because you look miserable and that tickles me Elmo, but there’s really nothing here. The Nemeton isn’t evil – it’s not good – but it’s not gonna hurt anyone.”

“If you could come with me,” Derek says, as if he too is just now recalling where he is, “right now, let me bring you back to Scott and Melissa, would you?”

“Don’t be shitty.”

“I wasted five years in the woods alone. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make anything go away. I’m not gonna wait around another five years for you to figure that out.”

He’s been in the woods this whole time? Seriously, what even is his life?

“Then go,” Stiles spits.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Grinding his teeth Stiles says slowly, “You can’t _make_ me leave it, I’m not _skinny and defenseless_ anymore.” Derek visibly recoils. That’s right asshole, Thing One let slip exactly what he thought of him. It was a long time ago, but still, thank you very much for reinforcing all of his body image issues. That wasn’t at all traumatic for a kid like Stiles to hear. Certainly not after watching everyone he loves get their asses kicked over and over and knowing that even a tenth of the force exerted against them turned on frail little Stiles would have fucking crippled or killed him.

Derek’s gaze cools like steel. Whatever he’s thinking, it’s stirring him up, making him angry. At what, Stiles doesn’t really care. They glare at each other.

He has years of anecdotal proof that should have prepared him for what happens next.

Derek has him by the front of his t-shirt and wrenches him forward across the table. He flails, struggling to keep some sort of balance and his hands smack the table to hold himself upright. He’s too close to Derek’s face too quickly. Hot breath and cold skin close in around him.

“Why can’t I smell you?” Derek growls. That sound _does_ things to Stiles. Things it shouldn’t. It makes him prey, which is fucked up enough without all the blood going straight to his groin because of it.

He channels his own anger and snaps, “Because it’s – cheating. Even Scott can practically – read my – mind just from smelling me.” He is rapidly losing the control he started out with.

“Stop blocking it,” Derek commands, shaking him. Jesus. He hasn’t felt anything remotely close to arousal in months. He doesn’t know what to do about it so he gives into the mounted frustration.

“Fuck _off_ ,” he manages.

“You worried I’ll smell you lying? Smell the anxiety? The doubt?”

“Don’t like being muzzled?” he spits back.

“You scared I’m gonna make you see what you’ve done to yourself?”

“I don’t – want your help.”

“Tough _shit_.”

Jesus. Fuck this. _Fuck this._

He’s not a goddamn kid anymore. There is literally nothing standing between him and Derek Hale other than his own dignity, and he’s got just about none of that left. The rest of it, the hate, the hurt, that parcels up nicely with his already crushing self-loathing.

So fuck this.

He bangs his knee trying to get on the table. He doesn’t care, doesn’t even notice it. He needs to feel that mouth on his, at least once. Consider it his consolation for all this bullshit.

His fingers wreath into Derek’s wet hair like he’s always wanted to do, and he kneads their lips together. Derek doesn’t do anything about it. If this had been high school, it would have mortified him. It doesn’t matter. Not at all. Derek could freeze solid for all he cares. He is going to kiss that stupidly grumpy mouth until he rips to pieces–

Derek whips him off the table, hands on him, on his back, his hip, dragging them together. He’s dropped onto this back against the table and he instantly wraps Derek’s waist with his thighs, and oh god, how is Derek so warm and absolutely freezing at the same time? Stiles is so frantic he can’t stand it, can’t focus. Derek’s mouth is frenzied on his, tong pressing his lips, prying them apart and he’s shaking like he’s sixteen, the both are.

This isn’t how he thought it would ever happen. Two fucking ruined people tearing each other apart, needing to feel _something_. But god, does he need it, need to taste Derek’s skin, to feel his weight and the roll of his muscle under his hands. He’s blank. All of it vanishes. There’s no more Spark, no more empty house, no more nightmares or panic – Derek burns it out of him, scorches him.

Derek grinds him into the table, rutting agonizingly over the swell of his dick and a pitchy moan, a noise like he’s never even made while touching himself, breaks in Stiles’ throat. Stiles is a talker. He has mad dirty talk skills, but moaning? He sounds like a low budget porno. He doesn’t care. More sounds come out of him, sounds he can’t help and doesn’t want to.

His own debauched keening is only working him up more and each one makes Derek grind into him harder. Jesus, he’s gonna come. Come from dry humping; what the fuck it is that about? He’s not virgin, but Jesus this is so far beyond anything human, so animal. He bites back a scream.

He loses his hold on the projection completely.

He lets it go, lets Derek have his scent back. He feels the inhale and the wretched groan in Derek’s chest. Suddenly it’s all Derek can do to get to his throat. Fingers lock in Stiles’ hair and yank his head to the side exposing it. Those sharp teeth bite down and Stiles shuts off for a second. How in sweet hell he does not blow right then completely eludes him.

“I,” he gasps, Derek’s mouth isn’t cold anymore, it hot and reddened and leaving a trail of devastation down Stiles’ throat. His back arches right off the table in a spasm and he grips solid arms, nails digging in. “Don’t know – if I want to fuck you or get f-fucked,” he pants wetly.

“ _Shut up_.” Derek rasps into his clavicle.

“I – _ah_ – don’t forgive you.”

“ _I don’t want you to._ ”

Their lips crash back together. He wants to die here, like this. Between gulps of air Stiles manages, “ _Jesus_ , you taste like fucking sex.” He should have done this when Derek tried to leave, should have shoved him against his douchy SUV and made him stay, made him forget about running.

Non-color eyes are on him set into a scarlet, shatteringly vulnerable visage. Stiles holds the sides of his face, trying to hold him together. He probably doesn’t even know what he looks like and it’s all the more heartbreaking.

Derek stammers, “You’re so—,”

Stiles can’t hear it. Whatever it is, he just can’t and certainly not when it’s coming from such a profound place of exposure. It hurts just like the day Derek left. Worse.

“You – need to fuck me. Now. Right now.” This needs to be physical. Only physical. He can’t take anything else. Derek nods against his mouth and hands slip under his shirt, pushing it over his stomach and Derek’s palms are so protective when they touch him there, so gentle –

The Door closes.

Stiles slams back into himself, back into the grove. Reeling, he falls on his side and vomits up bile. He hadn’t closed the Door, it hadn’t been him. Something else had shoved him out too quickly.

The Nemeton cradles him up until the retching ends.


	6. Chapter 6

**Six.**

 

The Nemeton hides thoughts of Chris Argent. Each time they try to overwhelm him, the sensation of tendons and bone cracking under his fingers, the flicker leaving white-blue eyes, they are suppressed. His mind is desperate to grieve, to confront what he’s done, but the Nemeton refuses to like him sink into that kind of despair.

It gives him other thoughts while he works to care for the sprawling garden tucked into its roots. It continually returns to Derek, to the feel of huge hands on his skin, to the hatred that keeps him going. He’s become the one thing Stiles can hate more than he hates himself.

The shakes and the hunger are getting worse. It doesn’t matter how much he tries to eat. His system is starved for the chemicals it’s been addled with since he was a kid. Soon he can’t work anymore, can’t bring himself to do more than lay on the stump as his body succumbs to the tremors.

The Nemeton shudders beneath him, saddened, strained to give him what he needs to get better, but not quite understanding how humans work. It’s ok. This is… this only temporary. As long as his mind is clear he can shut out the discomfort. He has to believe the shivering and the aches will end at some point. God he just can’t remember what it was like being completely level. He doesn’t know how to get back to that.

Out here, he might not.

He retreats into himself until sleep comes.

 

The tree brings Derek to him. It shows him Derek’s dream, shows him how to prop it open with his Spark, but it’s his choice to step through. It takes more concentration to maintain this world then it does beyond the Door. Detatched from his own deteriorating body, he is able to offer a whole effort into solidifying the ground and waking Derek from his subconscious.

He pretends he doesn’t know why he bothers. But somewhere in him he does. Derek makes him forget, wipes him clean, gives him what the Nemeton can’t even if he’s not sure what that is.

He sees Derek at the bluff’s edge. He’s dressed in dark colors. Dark colors always suited him. For a time, all Stiles can do is watch him looking out over Beacon Hills, arms crossed.

“Why the triskele?” he hears him ask. At first he’s not sure what Derek means. The Nemeton. It must have reached out to him, shown him the same insufferable visions of the spiral.

Stiles doesn’t know why. He’s pushing his own dreams into Derek’s mind before his realizes what he’s doing. It’s the only way he can explain.

Derek mumbles, “I don’t know what it means either.”

Stiles steps into the dream as his old self, using his own memories of how he looked to camouflage the pitiful trembling thing he’s become. 

“In what world would you have figured it out before me?” he asks and Derek turns.

He shrugs. “You don’t know what the Nemeton wants?”

Stiles chews pensively on his lower lip, eyes low, “It needs me. And,” he makes an annoyed sound, “And now it wants you. But no, it doesn’t say why. Right now it just helps me survive in the woods. It’s pretty boring, actually. Bear Grylls makes it seem way more cool.” The Nemeton is using Derek to remedy Stiles’ mental and physical sickness, but he won’t cop to that shit, not for a second.

“How much Adderall do you have left?”

The question is abrupt and one he does not want to answer. Hearing it come from Derek is borderline humiliating.

He deflects, “I don’t really know how to react to concerned Derek. That’s a new one.”

He earns himself a cutting glare. He’s too familiar with that look and knows Derek won’t say another word until he gets what he wants. Stiles should lie. Fuck him. It’s none of his – but why did he ask? It’s not a secret the Stiles takes strong doses of ADD meds. What gives Stiles pause is that fact that he asked at all, why is it in Derek’s mind now?

Is he… he’s in Stiles’ house isn’t he? He’s seen the Bestiary, that’s why he asked about the triskele, and that means he figured out how to unlock Stiles’ computer. Stiles stares at him. At Derek Hale.

“I don’t have any,” he says, not able to lie. Derek is hunting him down in the waking world. Going through his house and his things. He should feel violated. He should be more upset. If Derek saw the Bestiary it’s a safe bet he saw everything else saved to his computer.

“Where are you?” Derek asks slowly, voice low. The determination setting his shoulders and jaw makes Stiles shiver.

“Things got a little out of hand last time, that doesn’t mean I wa-,”

A few long strides and Derek is crowding him, but Stiles refuses to be intimidated. Derek’s just an asshole. Stiles faced up to plenty of assholes like him in high school. He isn’t about to cower away now.

“I know you’re going into withdrawal,” Derek tells him. Stiles’ teeth graze his bottom lip. He’s struggling to keep his eyes on Derek’s, but he won’t look away, no fucking way will he give him the satisfaction of submission. Stiles leans forward enough to prove this and hisses, “It’s none of your fucking-,”

Derek catches his jaw and looks right through him. His knees betray him, go completely weak like they did every time Derek looked at him before that fucking church.

“When I wake up,” Derek says, deliberately, nailing him in place with those bright eyes, “I’m going to find you. I am not playing games with that tree or you. I’m going to take you home and take care of you. I will rip apart whatever gets in my way. Do you understand?”

It’s rage. It’s need. It’s too many things flooding in at once. Stiles sticks to fury because it’s pure and he can wrap his head around it better than trying to sort through all the conflicting shit building up in him.

He jerks away and shouts, “Really, _really Derek?! Now_ you’re my fucking savior? Is this a joke? Why the hell do you care? WHY THE _FUCK_ DID YOU EVEN LEAVE?”

“BECAUSE I THOUGHT I’D RATHER BE ALONE THAN BE RUIN MYSELF LOVING YOU.”

There it is. Exactly what he doesn’t want to hear. Exactly what he needs to hear over and over again. Because everyone that’s ever laid hands on Derek Hale has done it to hurt him. Letting Stiles touch him too meant letting Stiles tear him down just like they did. He could never trust Stiles not to ruin him, could never even bring himself to let Stiles prove that he would never lay a violent hand on him. Not ever.

Not expecting him to speak again, Stiles flinches when Derek says softly, “Except I’m a fucking moron and selfish, and I don’t want to be apart. Being away from you was the worst thing I’ve ever done. I don’t want you to forgive me. Ever. And after you’re safe you can tell me leave and I will, because _that’s_ what I deserve. To leave because you can’t stand me, because _you_ told me to.”

That’s not what he wants. Stiles’ eyes sting. No, that’s – it’s not what he wants at all. He can’t voice exactly what he does want, but the one thought with any clarity ringing through his entire being is that he doesn’t want Derek to leave. Not again. Never again.

He wants to be taken care of. He wants to wake up and for Derek to be there. He still wants to go on his stupid, awkward date. He wants kissing and holding and to watch movies and, and, god he just doesn’t want the Spark inside him anymore. He wants to be what he was and this time for Derek to be there with him.

“I-,” Stiles croaks, “I wanna go home.”

Derek nods and his immediately scoops Stiles up to his chest, big, warm arms wrapping him in.

“Ok,” Derek mutters into his air. He kisses Stile’s temple lightly and Stiles is going to shatter because he’s so fucking tired and he knows when he wakes up how much his body is going to hurt and that he won’t be able to leave the Preserve on his own. But it doesn’t matter. Derek is going to find him, going to come for him, hold him for real, take him home.

Stiles has no hyper masculine delusions, he doesn’t give a shit how any of this sounds. He needs it. He needs this more than anything else.

When he kisses Derek he’s so unsure of how to do it. This isn’t like before. That was slaking his need for some sort of something to fill the hole gaping in him. He presses forward, warily as if Derek might pull away at any moment. He doesn’t, not at all, he meets Stiles without a thought and his mouth is kind and careful. It’s one hell of a substitute for a first kiss.

Without breaking it, Derek tenses and lifts him because he can. Holy shit.

“I missed you so much you fucking douche,” Stiles says into the crook of Derek’s neck. Derek’s skin is warm on his cheek and he buries himself in this feeling of closeness, tries to imagine how it will feel when he’s awake and hollow and barely able to function.

“You’ll be lucky to take a shit without me hovering over you, now.”

“Hale with the setup, Stilinski with the ‘way too fucking drained to do anything about it’.”

Derek sets him down, nuzzling against him and Jesus, nuzzling like a fucking wolf in a man’s clothes, which, fair, he is. Drained yes, dead no. Only a dead person would be able to withstand Derek Hale nudging their neck, _licking_ it. Teeth skate over his skin and Stiles’ hands clamp down on Derek’s arms just to have something hold on to.

It’s the dream. It has to be. There is no way this feels this mind blowing in the real world. No way. None.

“Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you,” Derek whispers into his throat. _Yes. Come get me. Please._

 “I feel like – if I don’t answer, you’ll keep doing – that,” Stiles forces out.

“I’ll do more when I find you,” he purrs. 

Derek may not talk often, but fuck the world when he does.

He rubs himself against Derek’s thigh, to get some relief; he’s burning up. It’s like Derek’s whole body is made of freaking granite. How is that even fair? Even for a werew – a hand squeezes Stile’s ass, pushes him hard against Derek’s leg and the pressure built in the pit of his stomach bursts. With a little shriek Stiles comes all over himself.

He drops the dream, fumbling his Spark and all of it sifts through his fingers.

“ _Oh my God_ ,” he gasps convulsing awake and the shivering isn’t just lack of drugs. What is he fifteen? A wet dream? Really? Holy shit, not ok.

Stiles falls back racked by aches and - shit. He groans. Something’s wrong. He can’t… shit, what just happened? He needs to clean himself up, he should – uh – he should. 

Flashes of thought go off haphazard, scattered. He can’t. Argent.

_You fucking killed him. You’re a murderer._

He draws a ragged breath, tears pooling up, tumbling down his cheeks. He killed Chris. For no reason. He broke his neck like it was a game. All of that anger, that cruelty pushed to the outside. It wasn’t an accident. He’d wanted to do it. He’d wanted to hurt someone, wanted to kill them.

He let the Nemeton play him like a puppet, but, he can’t focus, can’t think; it’s not playing anymore.

Calm down. Calm the fuck down. He’s divided because he’s panicking. He knows how this ends if he doesn’t calm down. Stiles rolls onto his side, balls himself up, makes himself count.

_Just count, kiddo. Count through it. I’m here._

The panic doesn’t take over. He staves it off. He counts until his heart rate comes down, until he can breathe again, until he falls asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

He’s awake at dawn. Without the Nemeton’s presence to protect him from himself, his eyes peel open weakly. He mouth is so dry.

He has to get out of here. He has to find Derek. Stiles pushes himself up on brittle arms.

He mutters numbers under his breath. He keeps counting until he’s on his feet. God, he hopes his scent is strong enough to follow. He’s not going to make it far like this. Blood pounds in his ears and blots his vision and he’s back down on his knees.

“Derek,” it comes out a hoarse whisper, his throat is papery, he can’t speak any louder than a whisper, can’t yell for help. What has he done to himself?

The Nemeton brushes his mind. It shows him its disappointment, its betrayal.

“Fuck off,” he snaps out loud.

It must hear him, because it invades his thoughts, stealing away his sight. It shows him a fire so bright and hot he has to squint away from it. He hears Derek’s screams clawing out from somewhere in the pyre. No. It’s not real. It’s not – he won’t ever say it, but Derek’s so afraid of fire, Stiles has seen him eye it any time it’s near, seen how jumpy he gets when it’s too close. Those terrified cries curdle his blood, churn him inside out. Stiles claps hands over his ears, squeezes his eyes closed.

“Stop!” he bleats uselessly.

The Nemeton forces him to see it, to see Derek trapped in a circle of fire, how he shrinks in on himself, eyes wild, skin blistering in the blaze. The Hales rise in columns of smoke, howling, mouths ghastly wide and unhinged.

No. Stiles culls the Spark, channels it to the outside. It’s not real. _Not real_.

The energy expands, blasting a hole in the illusion and it falls to pieces around him. He doesn’t have time to compose himself, to think, because the Nemeton is so much more powerful than he is, there is no way he could break its hallucination if it didn’t want him to. It let him out.

Kira and Isaac appear on the far side of the grove and seeing them here is a vice on his chest constrict all the air out of him.

“Stop!” he cries. Don’t think. Just do. Stiles thrusts a hand out to them. Spark careens down his arm, the shock wave wrinkles the air and before they can come any closer they fly backwards off their feet. Just as they are flung to safety Jackson materializes to his left.

Stiles is shaking too hard to throw him back. He feels Jackson in the Spark’s path, combs over his mind groping for the right trigger. He finds it, a smoldering ember powering his movement and the Spark snuffs it out. Jackson crumbles instantly, unconscious.

He fans the Spark, spreads it thin, searching out anything it can put to sleep. But he’s not some sort of expert mage, not Harry fucking Potter, he can’t control it. It hits something by accident, a spirit he knows as well as he knows himself. Scott?

“Stiles!”

 _Derek_. Whip lash scorches his nape he rips around so fast. Stiles can’t feel relief, elation, any of it, because Scott is with him, passed out in his arms. He drowns in Derek’s eyes, his real eyes. But he can’t go to him, can’t move.  He can scarcely struggle out of his own fear because Derek brought the pack.

The Nemeton will kill them, all of them. Its outrage is seeping into his skin, thrashing wildly, roaring. Stiles throws all of his Spark on to it to keep it down, keep it trapped in the wood.

“ _Get them – away_!” He clutches one of the roots, eyes squeezed shut. He hears the shift, four paws hitting the ground without question, darting in the tree line.

Suppressing it makes his Spark cut slits in his skin under the strain. Little gashes open on his arms and on his face; red ribbons spindle down his flesh. He’s just a human, his body is coming undone, too weak and defenseless after all.

He shakes his head blindly willing himself together.

He has to give Derek time to get the pack to safety. He’s so tired. So goddamn tried. This thing is going to kill him. It filled him with Spark, rent him inside out, made him a murderer and he let it. Let it destroy him. This is all his fucking fault. The pack is walking into a death trap because of him, and Derek….

He’s wasted so much time and now he’s all out.

The Nemeton quivers under his suppression and then it shrugs off his meager effort the way he would flick a mosquito off his arm. Stiles flips ass over teacups away from the stump. He coughs out dust, panting, wind gone from his lungs. He wasn’t restricting it, not even a little.

He waits to be incinerated, turned in a fucking toad, _something_ ; arms curl to protect his face instinctually.

Nothing.

He peeks up.

What the fuck? What the hell is this thing playing at? He can still feel its agitation, but it’s just… it’s not fucking doing anything. He prods the squirming mass of spiritual pressure with his Spark and again the Nemeton punches him, throwing off his touch and he skids back several feet. Dirt and sweat light up in the cuts all over his body.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” he screams at it. The thing is riled up, but it does nothing. It doesn’t chase down the pack, it…. How did they even get this close? Stiles knows just how far the Nemeton’s reach extends; even if they’d been on the other side of town it could have stopped them in their tracks.

The act of aggression, the nightmare hex… this is all wrong. This is… the threat was meant for the pack.

Branches snap and heavy steps drag laggardly across the ground.

His head twists around taking in the grove, looking for a threat that isn’t –

 _No_.

Stiles’ lurches himself out of the dirt. He collapses down next to Derek. No.

_No no no no_

Tears drop off his chin, they muddle the blood coating every inch of Derek’s body. Claw marks flay open his chest – his chest, it’s crooked, crushed.

 _Stiles isn’t the only one that grew to hate Derek in his absence_.

Derek uses force to get things done quickly. But they… the pack, they don’t know him anymore. They certainly don’t trust him. He is a rabid wolf to them, not a terrified friend. Not someone trying to save them, to push them back. He didn’t have time to explain what was happening, the threat he thought they were under, he must have –

Stiles cups his face, “Derek? Derek, stay awake!”

Unsteady hands brush through Derek’s hair, trying to pull him back, trying to help him somehow. Stiles’ fingers come back a shock of crimson.

“Why aren’t you healing?” Stiles mutters frantically. Derek’s going in and out, eyes glazing over, his flame wavering. Stiles shakes him, “Derek? Baby, please – don’t do this.”

If Derek hears him, he makes no indication. His head lulls, a bloody hand comes up, swaying like a ragdoll; he touches Stile’s chin.

“Are you fucking – joking,” Stiles barks hysterically, “You’re dying? All this and you’re fucking dy-,” he can’t speak, his throat is a twisting knot.

This can’t be real either. This has to be a trick too. It has to be.

Derek’s chest heaves, his voice is wet, he’s got a collapsed lung – Christ, half his fucking chest cavity is collapsed. Stiles’ brain fizzes, frenzied, terrified. Not Derek. Not Derek too. Please. God please don’t fucking do this.

Blood drains from the corner of his mouth as his gurgles out, “… love you.”

Stiles steels himself, finds clarity in his anger.

“Fuck you,” he snaps, “don’t fucking say that. Don’t say that just because you’re dying. Jesus – _fuck this_.”

He climbs on top of Derek.

_Is he a fucking Spark or isn’t he?_

Derek Hale will die like this over his dead fucking body. This is what he does. He saves Derek. Every time, without fail, he saves this stubborn, un-socialized, beautiful fucking man. Stiles stacks his hands together, puts them over Derek’s heart.

He pulls a growl out of his chest, a wolf’s growl, “Derek Hale if you die right now I will _fucking_ _kill you_!”

Spark explodes in his veins. The light blazes brighter than a star. Webs of electricity skate up his arms.

The Nemeton splits right down the middle throwing a sound in to the air that is more than a sound, it’s the breaking of the Nemeton’s grip on this plain. Stiles leeches power from the lesion, channeling it like a lightning rod. He strikes it out of every living thing in his path, anything that isn’t his pack, his family, shrivels up and crumbles into ashes and he slams the life back into Derek’s body right as he slips away.

Stiles plunges into the other world, the Door. He dives into the murk, tangles Derek in his Spark and fights back to the surface. The inky depth of this place sucks them under, a riptide of damned, black waters. It is a waking pool of death, a conscious thing that refuses to let go of the souls it snares and Stiles tears against its grip.

Spark hemorrhages out of him, burning away the dark water. He shoves Derek above him, toward the faint light beyond the Door.

The Door creaks closed.

It’s too far. They won’t make it. The light fades.

It catches.

A hand snatches Stiles and yanks them both through.

 

Air sears in Stile’s chest. He’s… he’s on the ground, on his back.

He squints into the sun.

Alan Deaton looks down on him.

Deaton. Deaton’s hand leaves his forehead, a subdued smile on his face.

Stiles’ head falls to the side. Derek is beside him. Horror spasms in his gut, turning his insides to water – he’s too still, he’s… he’s breathing. Derek’s chest rises and falls, but only just. His hand is facetted with Stiles’, but his entire body is slack.

“He’s… is he…?” Stiles is going to pass out, he feels it, the dizziness eating away at him.

“He’ll live, Mr. Stilinski,” Deaton says gently, “just rest.”

Stiles nods. Great idea, in fact, it’s the best idea he’s ever heard. He squeezes Derek’s hand and blacks out.


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles is aware of movement around him. Soft voices. Loud voices. As the last of the Spark drains from his blood it is replaced by a sluggish drumbeat of something heavier, drugs and traces of wolf, of the euphoria that comes from leeching pain from a shocked consciousness.

He drowns.

 

The first thing he is able to see is Scott. He looks like hell.

A few weeks ago Stiles would have reveled in seeing him even moderately repentant for abandoning him. Not now. Now he just wants everyone to stop hurting. Scott lost his friend to grief, Stiles, his father to a bad heart and none of it puts anyone to blame. Nothing changes what’s already happened. He just wants to fold it up and put it away. It stops now. Enough.

Stiles garbles something that sounds like Scott’s name and Scott’s eyes shoot up at him. He’s pale. Black snakes of pain grow faint as they disappear into his veins. He’s been taking pain this whole time and looks as sick as Stiles feels.

“Dude!” Scott almost sobs. They’ve never been huggers, really; that kind of affection is reserved for the really important times and this must be one. Scott scrambles onto the bed and snaps Stiles up in an uncomfortable embrace. Stiles' whole body hurts. He doesn’t care.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers into Scott’s shoulder. Stiles will plunge headlong into danger to save what he loves and Scott fixes him when he comes back.

“Me too, man, I’m so sorry, I’ll never leave you again, I promise, I’m sorry.” Even if he can’t keep that promise – and really, who can? – it doesn’t matter.

“Me neither,” Stiles tell him, gripping his jacket as tight as he can.

 

Getting on his feet is like trying to learn to walk all over again. He’s been in bed for five days and even before that, it wasn’t like he was doing much moving in the grove towards the end. Scott is his literal crutch, guiding him across the floor, keeping him upright when he knees buckle.

 

Melissa puts him back on his Adderall and the shakes, finally fucking stop. He’ll never complain about having to take his meds or run to the pharmacy again. He normally can’t sleep after taking them, but the chemical relief is so much, he all but passes out at the kitchen table.

 

When Deaton finally arrives at the McCall house, Stiles has been awake for what feels like days. Scott and Melissa didn’t want to upset him or tell him the wrong thing or whatever, that’s fine, he gets that, he’s doesn’t want misinformation either. But Christ, he’s bouncing off the goddamn walls waiting for Alan. He basically accosts Deaton at the door.

“What happened?” he demands.

Scott gets Stiles by the shoulders and pulls him back so Dr. Deaton can squeeze by.

“Where’s Derek?” he can hear the twisted metal in his voice. It would have been embarrassing a few months ago. He’s so beyond giving a shit what other people think of him. He’s been separated from his mate – his _mate_ – too long and it cuts worse than all the rest of it. Scott had said the pack brought Derek back to the loft – Cora held the lease now and had never felt right selling. He didn’t know more than that. True to his word so far, Scott hasn’t left his side for a minute, he even sleeps in the same room with Stiles, perched uncomfortably in a chair by the bed.

“He’s ok, Stiles, he’s still healing,” Alan says – of course he’d be withholding. He doesn’t even realize when he’s doing it. He’s the pack doctor and Stiles need barebones facts, numbers, a fucking pie chart of Derek’s health _right now_.

Scott doesn’t let go of his shoulders. He can sense exactly how agitated Stiles is. Stiles will tackle this man to ground if he doesn’t get something better in the next ten seconds.

“Alan, do you want anything to drink?” Melissa asks from the kitchen.

“NO!” Stiles shouts, lurching, “No, you don’t get anything until you tell me what going on!”

Alan looks exhausted, bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept. Good. He’d better be watching Derek like a fucking hawk.

“He died,” Deaton says evenly, taking Stiles’ outburst in stride, “Technically you did as well, Mr. Stilinski. I pulled both of you out of the Next Place, but while he died of his wounds, you voluntarily dove in. It will take him longer to recover. His healing still hasn’t fully returned. He’s still asleep.”

Stiles jerks away from Scott, who he suspects lets go so he doesn’t hurt himself.

“I want to see him, _now_.”

“He’s heavily sedated,” Deaton glances over at Melissa almost apologetically, if that’s possible for someone so self-possessed, “His werewolf metabolism is burning through the morphine faster than I anticipated.”

Stiles is already out the door, struggling into his sneakers as he walks. It takes about a minute of frantic searching before he remembers his Jeep is still in the shop – if it is at all anymore.

He waits impatiently for Scott come jogging out after him, keys in hand. They don’t wait for Melissa or Alan, because Scott’s a good friend and doesn’t have any more time for bullshit than Stiles does. No more wasting time. They’ve pressed their remaining grains of sand, squandered it, enough.

 

Stiles brushes passed the pack. He’s partially cognizant of their presence, of the surprise on their faces and the low growls of surprise. He darts up the spiral steps, only tripping a few times. Derek’s in bed surrounded by machines Melissa must have somehow swiped from the hospital. Most of it looks old, like it’s been collecting dust in storage since the nineties.

A heart monitor putters away in the corner and fluids are hooked up to Derek’s arms. His chest is covered in bandages, but it’s the right shape, no longer caved. The gashes are scabbed over where they aren’t wrapped. He’s breathing. He’s breathing without that wet gurgle, without any help.

Stiles’ holds a hand to his own forehead. He’s stopped in the middle of the room, a tidal wave of all the different things that make tears crashing over him. God, he can’t do this ever again. He’ll do it every time he has to.

He stumbles forward and puts himself on the mattress.

He stays.

 

He’s idly scrolling through Reddit, reading about nothing, just watching words and pictures reel under his thumb, when he feels Derek stirring and his heart does a scared/excited flip. Derek’s dark blot of lashes barely pulls apart, searching the ceiling, but not quite seeing.

“I’mdreaming,” he slurs, dryly. His throat clicks with tacky spit.

Stiles wants to cry and laugh. He puts a hand on Derek’s arm, but he doesn’t react. Jesus, he must be so high. Stiles had watched Deaton change out his fluids ever couple of hours. For once the vet wasn't fucking around. Derek probably doesn’t even know his own name at this point.

“That’s super flattering, but no, big guy, not this time.”

For good measure, Stiles wiggles ten fingers in his eye line.

“What’sss wrong withme?”

“You may or may not have three times the legal limit of morphine in your system.”

A weak frown turns down the corners of Derek's mouth. Not even dangerous amounts of drugs can stop him from being pissed at everything, apparently.

“I can’t gethigh,” he says indignantly.

“You can when the Nemeton siphons off almost all of your wolfy healing powers.” Deaton had mentioned something to that effect, but Stiles hadn’t been listening – he had been too busy trying to go unnoticed on the way to the bathroom, which, is impossible in a den full of wolves. Their grating stares are almost too much, not that it would ever be enough to make him leave.

“What?” Derek asks, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

“I’ll tell you later.”

Derek tries to look at him, the fight to focus drawing his brow into a deeper furrow. Something must snap into place because he suddenly tries to sit up. He makes it about half way before fire goes out of his eyes and he grimaces. Stiles pushes him back down. It’s too easy and makes his stomach sour. He shouldn’t be able to _make_ Derek do anything.

“Easy,” he murmurs. He’s weak, but he’s so solid under Stiles’ palms, solid the way he remembers. He keeps his hands there, feels the gritted texture of the gauze and under them, the wolf’s heat and hard muscle. His breathing is stronger.

“You’re medicine-,” Derek croaks.

“I already took it,” Stiles says instantly. He wants to stay in this moment. The withdrawal and fever dreams aren’t real here. They don’t have to go back to that.

“You’re ok?”

Stiles feels himself smile, “Yeah,” he affirms, “Tired and really, _really_ hungry, but fine.” He can’t stop eating; feeding really. He’d lost twenty pounds in the woods and he hadn’t exactly had weight to spare. He looked like total shit. Like a ghost. The ghost of Oliver Twist. It’s maybe a good thing Derek's completely zonked on painkillers. Stiles would prefer to look slightly less like he’s just been freed from an internment camp by that time Derek’s healed.

“Good,” Derek says, his face relaxing. Tension goes out of his limbs.

“Sleep it off,” Stiles says, rubbing his chest.

“Could you,” he starts, and for a moment it’s like he’s fallen back asleep. He swallows and it makes a papery, uncomfortable sound.  “Petmy hair.”

That is not a sentence Stiles ever thought would come out of Derek Hale. The word ‘pet’ in particular is a little fucking weird, and so endearing at the same time, it makes Stiles laugh.

“You cannot even imagine how much shit you are going to get for this later you giant, scary man.”

Stiles climbs on to the bed until he’s laying along Derek’s side, careful not to disturb any of the tubes coming from his wrist. He combs his fingers over Derek’s crown and gets a happy, drowsy sound in response. Stiles may not have wolf senses, but Derek has a smell he can pick up on. It’s a wisp under the antiseptics, but it’s there. Stiles presses his nose into Derek’s hair as he cards through it. A cloud of herbal perfume fills his nose. Close to his skin, especially in his hair, Derek smells like rosemary. The kind Claudia used to grow in window boxes outside his parents’ room.

He smells like home. 


	9. Chapter 9

Nine.

 

Stiles is tucking away food as Deaton talks. He's not listening to the droning, affirmative noises coming from the pack like they understand exactly what he's saying. Stiles knows what happened in the woods. He understood it without the encumbrance of spoken word and did not try to think too hard on it.

The death of the Nemeton was maybe years, centuries in the making. Questioning why it chose them, chose this time, this method was a pointless thread to pull. He may have hallucinated some of the end, but his mind gives him sensations of relief as he drained the tree of it's life force to save Derek. Or maybe his brain is trying to help him cope with the destruction of such a powerful force, one that, ultimately, gave him his life back.

It made him suffer, but so did everything else. Sometimes a person has to suffer to understand, to better compartmentalize future pain. And there would be pain. Some new, random act will fall on him, on those he loves, again. He could turn his back on wolves forever and it would not change the inevitable cycle of agony and healing.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stares at the burrito wrapper on the floor. He can feel the others steal glances at him. His relationship with them is unalterably up-heaved. They are still trying to decide if he's a threat, if they want him among their ranks. It doesn't come as some grand revelation that he doesn't care if they ever accept him again. The whole point is that things change. People grow apart. It would have happened regardless of the Nemeton's game.

It was an idea he'd struggled with through his last year of high school. The last thing anyone wants to lose their closest friends, but sometimes there is no fight to be won, no monster to vanquish because all there really is change. He could not have stayed in that moment forever, nor should he have wanted to. Now when he feels ill he will always seek out the horizon.

Derek is staring at him from where he stands by the couch, arms hooked over his chest. The fondness in the expression makes Stiles cough on the bite in his mouth and he flushes. He doesn't look away, though. He won't ever look away. Derek is the break of new dawn, the coming sun resting the lip of the world. The unknown is terrifying. But he won't look away.

 

Derek's car was in the garage when Stiles pulled in, but when he shoves open the sliding door, the loft is empty. There's a faint smell of cleaners in the air and the rug in the living room looks fluffy and managed. Stiles pads to the kitchen to stow away his groceries.

It's hard to imagine Derek with a job. That would involve him actually interacting with people no matter what he chose to do. How he doesn't drive himself insane in this apartment all day is a mystery.

In fairness, the pack is his job, really. Scott may be alpha, but Derek is a born wolf, the one with experience and insight. He'll always be Stiles' alpha even if his eyes don't glow red. After the bags are emptied he trots upstairs and finds Derek in the bathroom, soaking in the tub, his eyes closed. Sweaty shorts, sneakers and compression sleeves are discarded by the door. Stiles balls up the clothes and sets them in the hamper.

He strips down, rolling shoulders after tugging his shirt over his head and then eases into the tub behind Derek. Warm water and body heat close him in as Derek leans back against his chest, eyes still closed and content. Stiles idly combs through his hair the way he likes until eliciting a happy groan that vibrates in Derek's back where it's pressed to him.

"How was your day?" Stiles murmurs against the shell of his ear. His leaves little kisses there that trail over Derek's shoulder.

"Good," Derek mutters back like he's half asleep. He's always drowsy this close to the new moon; more physically sensitive.

"Good," Stiles tells him. He's been thinking all day, barely functioning during his classes. Derek senses his tension no matter how soft his voice is. He turns his head to the side without twisting his body and asks, "What's wrong?"

"Group projects in class," Stiles lies. He knows lying to Derek is pointless, but he never gets offended by it. Derek tried to explain that, to him, lying just means Stiles doesn't want to talk about something. He prefers hearing a stuttered heartbeat to obliviously asking questions Stiles has to cautiously skirt. Derek nods shallowly and leans his head back on Stiles' shoulder.

"Chinese later?" Stiles suggests, fingers smoothing along Derek's arms where they're balanced on the tub's rim.

"Mhmm."

Derek says the new moon is draining, but Stiles likes when it looms. It makes Derek pliant, relaxed, like he has nothing to worry over, no broken memory shards to trod on. It's the only time he won’t bolt upright out of bed in a cold sweat, breathing hard. The absence of the moon gives him a modicum of peace that he doesn't have to fight for. Derek's nightmares have slackened their hold over the passed year, and Stiles' too, but the wounds are still healing. They may never completely knit together.

Stiles nuzzles his nose into the hinge of Derek's damp jaw.

He decides finally, pulls a clear string of thought, the one he's been toying with. Because he's sure. Maybe he has been for a long time. He used to fear waking up in the morning, dread that he would roll over and the bed would be empty, clothes missing from the closet. There were months at a time when he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in Derek's bed. Even after the first night they made love the frantic cries of his overpowering self preservation demanded he leave.

He'd driven back to Scott's house, trembling with guilt over ruining something that had been so perfect, so gentle and patient, so fucking full of care that it scared him to death. When he had returned to the loft in the morning Derek had been in the kitchen making coffee. He had glanced over at Stiles, frozen in the doorway so obviously saddened, blaming himself, but refusing to push the issue or let it play out on his features, and Stiles had broken down into tears.

Derek had cradled him up, told him it was ok, because this was the understanding they had agreed on. Nothing had to be permanent. He wasn't obligated to stay if he couldn't and a few droplets escaped Derek's eyes as he'd spoken, because he had known exactly why he'd woken up alone. Things were never so bad again, but the path to finding an even balance was not an easy one. Stiles found himself in the loft more and more often over the months. Days would turn to weeks to months until he found himself automatically driving there from school.

The day he realized it he'd sat in his car for an hour, blankly staring at the garage elevator bank. He revved the engine after a time and left, drove to the Preserve. He'd kicked around the site of the demolished Hale house until stumbling on a piece of metal not cleared when the place was torn down. Maybe it was a window latch or a hinge. It was too damaged to be certain.

He pocketed it and returned to the loft, returned home for the first time.

Stiles lays more kisses on Derek's neck and pulls in the scent of his hair. He says, breathy, "I got you something."

The hum reverberates in his chest again as Stiles reaches over the edge of the tub to fiddle through his pants pocket. He settles when he has what he's looking for and Derek sinks into him comfortably. He circles his arms around his wolf's middle and holds up the small box, nose and mouth buried into the crux of Derek's throat. Derek is very still for longer than Stiles anticipated he might be.

"Open it," Stiles urges softly, around a kiss.

He continues to hold the box as Derek tentatively flips it open. The ring isn't shiny. The jeweler had polished it as much as he could, but a bit of worn steel would never shimmer like gold or silver.

Derek doesn't touch it. Stiles already knows the look on his face without having to see it, the pinch of his brow, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape with shock.

Stiles' gaze lowers, unable to corral the small smile slipping on to his lips. Into Derek's skin a asks, "What do you think?"

"Yes," punches out of Derek, instantly, like his brain has suddenly caught up to what he's being presented with, "Yes," he says again; this time is exits him as a relieved sigh. Stiles pulls the ring out, tosses the box to the side and slips it onto Derek's finger.

"I wasn't sure if it'd fit. Kinda had to guess your size," Stiles mumbles.

"It's – it's perfect."

Deviously grinning, Stile presses his lips to Derek's ear, delights in the shiver he feels climb Derek spine, "If you don't mind, I desperately need to fuck you."

Derek huffs a petulant breath, "You were being romantic."

"I can romantically fuck you."

Derek grouses, "Fine," but there's not real bite in the word. He can't hide just how happy he is from Stiles any better than Stiles can lie to him. "I want to soak a little longer," he tacks on lazily and mercilessly ruts into Stiles as if he's just getting comfortable.

The throbbing between Stiles' legs makes his breath hitch and he chuckles through the wave of warmth lapping the length of him. Hugging Derek to him, he lets his eyes drift shut and says, "Take as long as you want."


End file.
